F. M. Scherer is Aetna Professor Emeritus in the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Born in 1932, he received an A.B. degree with honors and distinction from the University of Michigan in 1954; an M.B.A. with high distinction from Harvard University in 1958; and a Ph.D. in business economics from Harvard University in 1963. He is married to Barbara Silbermann Scherer. They have three children and eight grandchildren.

His research specialties are industrial economics and the economics of technological change, leading to numerous publications, the most important of which are listed beginning on page six.